David Hyatt has been formally named the President of IU Health Starke Hospital. The IU Health Starke Hospital Community Board made the move official during the board’s regular meeting Monday night. He had been serving in the capacity of Interim President since June of this year.

Hyatt transferred to IU Health Starke Hospital in September 2009 as Vice President of Operations after serving as a Business Development Associate at IU Health LaPorte Hospital. In 2010, he was named Vice President of Strategy and Ambulatory Services for the LaPorte hospital.

Board President Ben Bennett stated that the board was very impressed with Hyatt’s enthusiasm, and he feels that Hyatt is ready to move the hospital forward.

IU Health Starke Hospital personnel attended a Strategic Planning Retreat this week. Presenting pertinent information were Doug Leonard, the president of the Indiana Hospital Association; Tory Castor, vice president of Government Affairs at IU Health Indianapolis; and Dr. Curt Bechler, managing partner of Venture International, LLC.

Included was a review of surveys taken by community members and an examination of national trends. Most of the respondents expressed confidence in the medical staff, and praised the decision to affiliate with IU Health. One weakness, however, was the perception that the antiquated Starke Hospital building denoted inferior services – but Hospital Interim CEO David Hyatt noted that the services rendered at Starke have never been better.

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IU Health Starke Hospital Interim President David Hyatt announced this week that the hospital has invested nearly three quarters of a million dollars in new equipment. He presented his capital expenditures report to the Starke County Council last week, and he said total capital expenditures so far this year total $862,071. He says $735,280 of these expenses were for equipment, with $63,589 in contingency funds.

Two high-tech pieces of equipment cost nearly half a million dollars alone, including a Nuclear Medicine Dual-head Camera at $276,749, and a new Patient Monitoring System for the inpatient units with a cost of $202,470. Hyatt says the new patient monitors are the most technologically-advanced monitors available, and will allow patients to be monitored anywhere in the hospital from central monitoring screens in the ICU and Medical Surgical Units.

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